ONE MINUTE LONGER by Albert Payson Terhune In the Public Domain

Transcription

1 ONE MINUTE LONGER by Albert Payson Terhune In the Public Domain WOLF was a collie, red-gold and white of coat, with a shape more like his long-ago wolf ancestors than like a domesticated dog s. It was from this ancestral throw-back that he was named Wolf. He looked not at all like his great sire, Lad, nor like his dainty, thoroughbred mother, Lady. Nor was he like them in any other way, except that he inherited old Lad s stanchly gallant spirit and loyalty. No, in traits as well as in looks, he was more wolf than dog. He almost never barked, his snarl supplying all vocal needs. The Mistress or the Master or the Boy any of these three could romp with him, roll him over, tickle him, or subject him to all sorts of playful indignities. And Wolf entered gleefully into the fun of the romp. But let any human besides these three lay a hand on his slender body, and a snarling plunge for the offender s throat was Wolf s invariable reply to the caress. It had been so since his puppyhood. He did not fly at accredited guests, nor, indeed, pay any heed to their presence, so long as they kept their hands off him. But to all of these the Boy was forced to say at the very outset of the visit: Pat Lad and Bruce all you want to, but leave Wolf alone. He doesn t care for people. Then, to prove his own immunity, the Boy would proceed to tumble Wolf about, to the delight of them both. In romping with humans whom they love, most dogs will bite more or less gently, or pretend to bite, as a part of the game. Wolf never did. In his wildest and roughest romps with the Boyar with the Boy s parents, Wolf did not so much as open his mighty jaws. Perhaps because he dared not trust himself to bite gently. Perhaps because he realized that a bite was not a joke, but an effort to kill. There had been only one exception to Wolf s hatred for mauling at strangers hands. A man carne to The Place on a business call, bringing along a two-yearold daughter. The Master warned the baby that she must not go near Wolf, although she might pet any of the other collies. Then he became so much interested in the business talk that he and his guest forgot all about the child. Ten minutes later, the Master chanced to shift his gaze to the far end of the room, and he broke off, with a gasp, in the very middle of a sentence. 1

2 The baby was seated astride Wolf s back, her tiny heels digging into the dog s sensitive ribs, and each of her chubby fists gripping one of his ears. Wolf was lying there, with an idiotically happy grin on his face and wagging his tail in ecstasy. No one knew why he had submitted to the baby s tugging hands, except because she was a baby, and because the gallant heart of the dog had gone out to her helplessness. Wolf was the official watch-dog of The Place, and his name carried dread to the loafers and tramps of the region. Also, he was the Boy s own special dog. He had been born on the Boy s tenth birthday, five years before this story of ours begins, and ever since then the two had been inseparable chums. One sloppy afternoon in late winter, Wolf and the boy were sprawled, side by side, on the fur rug in front of the library fire. The Mistress and the Master had gone to town for the day. The house was lonely, and the two chums were left to entertain each other. The boy was reading a magazine. The dog beside him was blinking in drowsy comfort at the fire. Presently, finishing the story he had been reading, the Boy looked across at the sleepy dog. Wolf, he said, here s a story about a dog. I think he must have been something like you. Maybe he was your great-great-great-great-grandfather, because he lived an awfully long time ago in Pompeii. Ever hear of Pompeii? Now, the Boy was fifteen years old, and he had too much sense to imagine that Wolf could possibly understand the story he was about to tell him; but long since he had fallen into a way of talking to his dog, sometimes, as if to another human. It was fun for him to note the almost pathetic eagerness wherewith Wolf listened and tried to grasp the meaning of what he was saying. Again and again, at sound of some familiar word or voice inflection, the collie would prick up his ears or wag his tail, as if in the joyous hope that he had at last found a clue to his owner s meaning. You see, went on the Boy, this dog lived in Pompeii, as I told you. You ve never been there, Wolf. Wolf was looking up at the Boy in wistful excitement, seeking vainly to guess what was expected of him. And, continued the Boy, the kid who owned him seems to have had a regular knack for getting into trouble all the time. And his dog was always on hand to get him out of it. It s a true story, the magazine says. The kid s father was so grateful to the dog that he bought him a solid silver collar. Solid silver! Get that, Wallie? Wolf did not get it. But he wagged his tail hopefully, his eyes alight with bewildered interest. 2

3 And, said the Boy, what do you suppose was engraved on the collar? Well, I ll tell you: This dog has thrice saved his little master from death. Once by fire, once by flood, and once at the hands of robbers! How s that for a record, Wolf? For one dog, too! At the words Wolf and dog, the collie s tail smote the floor in glad comprehension. Then he edged closer to the Boy as the narrator s voice presently took on a sadder note. But at last, resumed the Boy, there came a time when the dog couldn t save the kid. Mount Vesuvius erupted. All the sky was pitch-dark, as black as midnight, and Pompeii was buried under lava and ashes. The dog might have got away by himself dogs can see in the dark, can t they, Wolf? but he couldn t get the kid away. And he wouldn t go without him. You wouldn t have gone without me, either, would you, Wolf? Pretty nearly two thousand years later, some people dug through the lava that covered Pompeii. What do you suppose they found? Of course they found a whole lot of things. One of them was that dog silver collar and inscription and all. He was lying at the feet of a child. It must have been the child he couldn t save. He was one grand dog hey, Wolf? The continued strain of trying to understand began to get on the collie s high-strung nerves. He rose to his feet, quivering, and sought to lick the Boy s face, thrusting one upraised white fore paw at him in appeal for a handshake. The Boy slammed shut the magazine. It s slow in the house, here, with nothing to do, he said to his chum. I m going up the lake with my gun to see if any wild ducks have landed in the marshes yet. It s almost time for them. Want to come along? The last sentence Wolf understood perfectly. On the instant, he was dancing with excitement at the prospect of a walk. Being a collie, he was of no earthly help in a hunting-trip; but on such tramps, as everywhere else, he was the Boy s inseparable companion. Out over the slushy snow the two started, the boy with his light single-barreled shotgun slung over one shoulder, the dog trotting close at his heels. The March thaw was changing to a sharp freeze. The deep and soggy snow was crusted over, just thick enough to make walking a genuine difficulty for both dog and boy. The Place was a promontory that ran out into the lake, on the opposite bank from the mile-distant village. Behind, across the high-road, lay the winterchoked forest. At the lake s northerly end, two miles beyond The Place, were the reedy marshes where a month hence wild duck would congregate. Thither, with Wolf, the Boy plowed his way through the biting cold. The going was heavy and heavier. A quarter-mile below the marshes the Boy struck out across the upper corner of the lake. Here the ice was rotten at the 3

4 top, where the thaw had nibbled at it, but beneath it was still a full eight inches thick, easily strong enough to bear the Boy s weight. Along the gray ice-field the two plodded. The skim of water, which the thaw had spread an inch thick over the ice, had frozen in the day s cold spell. It crackled like broken glass as the chums walked over it. The Boy had on big hunting-boots, so, apart from the extra effort, the glass-like ice did not bother him. To Wolf it gave acute pain. The sharp particles were forever getting between the callous black pads of his feet, pricking and cutting him acutely. Little smears of blood began to mark the dog s course; but it never occurred to Wolf to turn back, or to betray by any sign that he was suffering. It was all a part of the day s work a cheap price to pay for the joy of tramping with his adored young master. Then, forty yards or so on the hither side of the marshes, Wolf beheld a right amazing phenomenon. The Boy had been walking directly in front of him, gun over shoulder. With no warning at all, the youthful hunter fell, feet foremost, out of sight through the ice. The light shell of new-frozen water that covered the lake s thicker ice also masked an air-hole nearly three feet wide. Into this, as he strode carelessly along, the Boy had stepped. Straight down he had gone, with all the force of his hundred-and-ten pounds and with all the impetus of his forward stride. Instinctively, he threw out his hands to restore his balance. The only effect of this was to send the gun flying ten feet away. Down went the Boy through less than three feet of water (for the bottom of the lake at this point had started to slope upward toward the marshes) and through nearly two feet more of sticky marsh mud that underlay the lake-bed. His outflung hands struck against the ice on the edges of the air-hole, and clung there. Sputtering and gurgling, the Boy brought his head above the surface and tried to raise himself, by his hands, high enough to wriggle out upon the surface of the ice. Ordinarily, this would have been simple enough for so strong a lad, but the glue-like mud had imprisoned his feet and the lower part of his legs and held them powerless. Try as he would, the Boy could not wrench himself free of the slough. The water, as he stood upright, was on a level with his mouth. The air-hole was too wide for him, at such a depth, to get a good purchase on its edges and lift himself bodily to safety. Gathering such a finger-hold as he could, he heaved with all his might, throwing every muscle of his body into the struggle. One leg was pulled almost free of the mud, but the other was driven deeper into it. And as the Boy s fingers slipped from the smoothly wet ice-edge, the attempt to restore his balance drove the free leg back, knee-deep into the mire. 4

5 Ten minutes of this hopeless fighting left the Boy panting and tired out. The icy water was numbing his nerves and chilling his blood into torpidity. His hands were without sense of feeling as far up as the wrists. Even if he could have shaken free his legs from the mud, now he had not strength enough left to crawl out of the hole. He ceased his uselessly frantic battle and stood dazed. Then he came sharply to himself. For, as he stood, the water crept upward from his lips to his nostrils. He knew why the water seemed to be rising. It was not rising. It was he who was sinking. As soon as he stopped moving the mud began very slowly, but very steadily, to suck him downward. This was not a quicksand, but it was a deep mud-bed, and only by constant motion could he avoid sinking farther and farther down into it. He had less than two inches to spare at best before the water should fill his nostrils; less than two inches of life, even if he could keep the water down to the level of his lips. There was a moment of utter panic. Then the Boy s brain cleared. His only hope was to keep on fighting to rest when he must for a moment or so, and then to renew his numbed grip on the ice-edge and try to pull his feet a few inches higher out of the mud. He must do this as long as his chilled body could be scourged into obeying his will. He struggled again, but with virtually no result in raising himself. A second struggle, however, brought him chin-high above the water. He remembered confusedly that some of these earlier struggles had scarce budged him, while others had gained him two or three inches. Vaguely, he wondered why. Then turning his head, he realized. Wolf, as he turned, was just loosing his hold on the wide collar of the Boy s mackinaw. His cut forepaws were still braced against a flaw of ragged ice on the air-hole s edge, and all his tawny body was tense. His body was dripping wet, too. The Boy noted that; and he realized that the repeated effort to draw his master to safety must have resulted, at least once, in pulling the dog down into the water with the floundering Boy. Once more, Wolfie! Once more! chattered the Boy through teeth that clicked together like castanets. The dog darted forward, caught his grip afresh on the edge of the Boy s collar, and tugged with all his fierce strength, growling and whining ferociously the while. The boy seconded the collie s tuggings by a supreme struggle that lifted him higher than before. He was able to get one arm and shoulder clear above the ice. His numb fingers closed about an upthrust tree-limb which had been washed down stream in the autumn freshets and had been frozen into the lake ice. 5

6 With this new purchase, and aided by the dog, the Boy tried to drag himself out of the hole. But the chill of the water had done its work. He had not the strength to move farther. The mud still sucked at his calves and ankles. The big hunting boots were full of water that seemed to weigh a ton. He lay there, gasping and chattering. Then, through the gathering twilight, his eyes fell on the gun, lying ten feet away. Wolf! he ordered, nodding toward the weapon, Get it! Get it! Not in vain had the Boy talked to Wolf for years as if the dog were human. At the words and the nod, the collie trotted over to the gun, lifted it by the stock, and hauled it awkwardly along over the bumpy ice to his master, where he laid it down at the edge of the air-hole. The dog s eyes were cloudy with trouble, and he shivered and whined as with ague. The water on his thick coat was freezing to a mass of ice. But it was from anxiety that he shivered, and not from cold. Still keeping his numb grasp on the tree-branch, the boy balanced himself as best he could and thrust two fingers of his free hand into his mouth to warm them into sensation again. When this was done, he reached out to where the gun lay, and pulled its trigger. The shot boomed deafeningly through the twilight winter silences. The recoil sent the weapon sliding sharply back along the ice, spraining the Boy s trigger finger and cutting it to the bone. That s all I can do, said the Boy to himself. If anyone hears it, well and good. I can t get at another cartridge. I couldn t put it into the breech if I had it. My hands are too numb. For several endless minutes he clung there, listening. But this was a desolate part of the lake, far from any road, and the season was too early for other hunters to be abroad. The bitter cold, in any case, tended to make sane folk hug the fireside rather than to venture so far into the open. Nor was the single report of a gun uncommon enough to call for investigation in such weather. All this the Boy told himself as the minutes dragged by. Then he looked again at Wolf. The dog, head on one side, still stood protectingly above him. The dog was cold and in pain, but, being only a dog, it did not occur to him to trot off home to the comfort of the library fire and leave his master to fend for himself. Presently, with a little sigh, Wolf lay down on the ice, his nose across the Boy s arm. Even if he lacked strength to save his beloved master, he could stay and share the Boy s sufferings. But the Boy himself thought otherwise. He was not at all minded to freeze to death, nor was he willing to let Wolf imitate the dog of Pompeii by dying 6

7 helplessly at his master s side. Controlling for an instant the chattering of his teeth, he called: Wolf! The dog was on his feet again at the word, alert, eager. Wolf! repeated the Boy. Go! Hear me? Go! He pointed homeward. Wolf stared at him, hesitant. Again the Boy called in vehement command, Go! The collie lifted his head to the twilight sky in a wolf-howl, hideous in its grief and appeal a howl as wild and discordant as that of any of his savage ancestors. Then, stooping first to lick the numb hand that clung to the branch, Wolf turned and fled. Across the cruelly sharp film of ice he tore at top speed, head down, whirling through the deepening dusk like a flash of tawny light. Wolf understood what was wanted of him. Wolf always understood. The pain in his feet was as nothing. The stiffness of his numbed body was forgotten in the urgency of speed. The Boy looked drearily after the swift-vanishing figure which the dusk was swallowing. He knew the dog would try to bring help, as has many another and lesser dog in times of need. Whether or not that help could arrive in time, or at all, was a point on which the Boy would not let himself dwell. Into his benumbed brain crept the memory of an old Norse proverb he had read in school: Heroism consists in hanging on one minute longer. Unconsciously he tightened his feeble hold on the tree-branch and braced himself. FROM the marshes to The Place was a full two miles. Despite the deep and sticky snow, Wolf covered the distance in less than six minutes. He paused in front of the gate-lodge, at the highway entrance to the drive. But the gardener and his wife had gone to Paterson, shopping, that afternoon. Down the drive to the house he dashed. The maids had taken advantage of their employers day in New York to walk across the lake to the village to a motion-picture show. Wise men claim that dogs have not the power to think or to reason things out in a logical way. So perhaps it was mere chance that next sent Wolf s flying feet across the lake to the village. Perhaps it was chance, and not the knowledge that where there is a village there are people. Again and again, in the car, he had sat upon the front seat alongside the Mistress when she drove to the station to meet guests. There were always people at the station, and to the station Wolf now raced. 7

8 The usual group of platform idlers had been dispersed by the cold. A solitary baggageman was hauling a trunk and some boxes out of the express-coop on to the platform to be put aboard the five o clock train from New York. As the baggageman passed under the clump of station lights, he came to a sudden halt, for out of the darkness dashed a dog. Full tilt, the animal rushed up to him and seized him by the skirt of his overcoat. The man cried out in scared surprise. He dropped the box he was carrying and struck at the dog to ward off the seemingly murderous attack. He recognized Wolf, and he knew the collie s repute. But Wolf was not attacking. Holding tight to the coat-skirt, he backed away, trying to draw the man with him, and all the while whimpering aloud like a nervous puppy., A kick from the man s heavy-shod boot broke the dog s hold on the coatskirt, even as a second yell from the man brought four or five other people running out from the station waiting-room. One of these, the telegraph operator, took in the scene at a single glance. With great presence of mind he bawled loudly: MAD DOG! This, as Wolf, reeling from the kick, sought to gain another grip on the coatskirt. A second kick sent him rolling over and over on the tracks, while other voices took up the panic cry of Mad dog! Now, a mad dog is supposed to be a dog afflicted by rabies. Once in ten thousand times, at the very most, a mad-dog hue-and-cry is justified. Certainly not oftener. A harmless and friendly dog loses his Master on the street. He runs about, confused and frightened, looking for the owner he has lost. A boy throws a stone at him. Other boys chase him. His tongue hangs out, and his eyes glaze with terror. Then some fool bellows: Mad dog! And the cruel chase is on a chase that ends in the pitiful victim s death. Yet in every crowd there is a voice ready to raise that asinine and murderously cruel shout. So it was with the men who witnessed Wolf s frenzied effort to take aid to the imperiled Boy. Voice after voice repeated the cry. Men groped along the platform edge for stones to throw. The village policeman ran puffing upon the scene, drawing his revolver. Finding it useless to make a further attempt to drag the baggageman to the rescue, Wolf leaped back, facing the ever larger group. Back went his head again in that hideous wolf-howl. Then he galloped away a few yards, trotted back, howled once more, and again galloped lakeward. 8

9 All of which only confirmed the panicky crowd in the belief that they were threatened by a mad dog. A shower of stones hurtled about Wolf as he came back a third time to lure these dull humans into following him. One pointed rock smote the collie s shoulder, glancing, cutting it to the bone. A shot from the policeman s revolver fanned the fur of his ruff as it whizzed past. Knowing that he faced death, he nevertheless stood his ground, not troubling to dodge the fusillade of stones, but continuing to run lakeward and then trot back, whining with excitement. A second pistol-shot flew wide. A third grazed the dog s hip. From all directions people were running toward the station. A man darted into a house next door, and emerged, carrying a shotgun. This he steadied on a veranda-rail not forty feet away from the leaping dog, and made ready to fire. It was then the train from New York came in, and momentarily the sport of mad-dog killing was abandoned, while the crowd scattered to each side of the track. From a front car of the train the Mistress and the Master emerged into a bedlam of noise and confusion. Best hide in the station, Ma am! shouted the telegraph operator, at sight of the Mistress. There is a mad dog loose out here! He s chasing folks around, and Mad dog! repeated the Mistress in high contempt. If you knew anything about dogs, you d know mad ones never chase folks around any more than typhoid patients do. Then A flash of tawny light beneath the station lamp, a scurrying of frightened idlers, a final wasted shot from the policeman s pistol, as Wolf dived headlong through the frightened crowd toward the voice he heard and recognized. Up to the Mistress and the Master galloped Wolf. He was bleeding, his eyes were bloodshot, his fur was rumpled. He seized the astounded Master s gloved hand lightly between his teeth and sought to pull him across the tracks and toward the hike. The Master knew dogs, especially he knew Wolf, and without a word he suffered himself to be led. The Mistress and one or two inquisitive men followed. Presently, Wolf loosed his hold on the Master s hand and ran on ahead, darting back every few moments to make certain he was followed. Heroism consists in hanging on one minute longer, the Boy was whispering deliriously to himself for the hundredth time as Wolf pattered up to him in triumph across the ice, with the human rescuers a scant ten yards behind! 9